


Rated M for Mature

by rokhal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gaming, Gen, Philosophy, Psychology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 18:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1657979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokhal/pseuds/rokhal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark does not understand video games (though he thinks he does), Steve Rogers does not understand video games (and knows it), Bruce Banner may or may not understand video games, James Barnes understands video games (whether he understands anything else is up for debate), and Natasha Romanov may or may not understand James Barnes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rated M for Mature

**Author's Note:**

> I do not game. I just lean over people's shoulders while they play, chewing obnoxiously. All errors are my own.

There was a street battle echoing from the 40th floor rec room. Steve was familiar enough with 21st century audio equipment and the expected smells of death and gunfire to sidle quietly into the room instead of charging in fists first. Within, Tony and Thor kept watching the six-foot flat screen on the far wall; Clint and Natasha spared Steve each an eyeflick; on the couch, James Barnes or possibly the Winter Soldier gave a minute twitch but kept to his button-mashing.

In his hands was a Stark Wedge, Stark-Tech’s most memorable consumer electronics flop. Introduced in 2004, it was versatile and adaptable, compatible with games released for Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft platforms, boasting an adaptive graphics rendering algorithm to optimize resolution but eliminate lag, and priced competitively: on its face a viable universal console, but crippled by profound handicaps that Tony Stark blamed on marketing and other morons.

The controller for the Wedge (the “Hilt”) was Tony’s ground-up re-imagining of the hand-game interface. Tony Stark had not had twenty hours to devote to a console game since the days of joysticks. The Hilt had twelve inputs—a rollerball, a row of buttons like the keys of a flute, and two twist-knobs modeled after motorcycle handlebar shifters—all of which were meant to be customized by the user according to personal preferences and the demands of individual games. “Baffles with an intimidating array of unmarked buttons and dials,” reviewers had said of the Hilt. “Demands settings for user preferences I didn’t know I had.”

Of _StarSabers_ , the sole game created for the Stark Wedge, one (relatively charitable) reviewer wrote, “A noble effort by a man who loves _Star Wars_ and _Star Wars_ fans, could not buy _Star Wars_ , and does not understand gaming because he happens to be an actual superhero in real life.” _StarSabers_ was a space cowboy environment where the bad guys wore helmets and lots of people had capes and swords for some reason, whose models were designed for easy file-sharing and alteration. “ _StarSabers_ is almost too easy to modify. In two hours, I was cruising over Mos Eisley in an X-Wing, blowing up Hut hover-barges. That’s how _StarSabers_ plays—the plot is paper-thin, the cut-scenes are pointless (and skippable!), there are no side-quests worth speaking of, but everything you need to build your own game is in your hands. Seamless physics, intelligent texture mapping, customizable characters, gorgeous motion capture. Tony Stark handed us a box of Dukati parts and figured we’d show up to the races in a month.”

A disappointing game would not have killed the Wedge. What killed the Wedge was where _StarSabers_ had succeeded: authenticity. Extensive motion capture of modern-day Samurai, reconstructions from martial arts texts from medieval Italy and Japan, artificial intelligence as only Tony Stark could program, and unmatched precision in the Hilt’s motion capture had made _StarSabers_ for Stark Wedge the most realistic sword-play simulator ever created. “Dueling the Darth Vader knock-off gave me the shivers,” the charitable reviewer had said. “I thought he was actually using the Force to read my mind. Then I realized that I was telegraphing my movements through the Hilt, and the AI understood and counterattacked. The thing about the saber duels is, you don’t get breaks. Your hand movements are what happen on screen. You pretty much have to _be_ Luke Skywalker to duel Darth Vader.

“To sum up, the Hilt is not a game controller, and _StarSabers_ is not a game.”

Only true believers now played _StarSabers_ on the Stark Wedge. The average gamer was content with the familiar mediocrity of standard controls in a standard layout and occasional lag.

Every rec room in Stark Tower was furnished with a flatscreen and a Wedge. On this screen, the Winter Soldier was steadily murdering his way through Los Angeles.

Thor rustled his thick fingers in a bowl of Cheetos. Natasha wore a slim smile. Clint stood braced against the back of the couch, leaning over Barnes’ head, hands twitching in time with the gunfire and sirens. Tony gazed from across the room at the agile hands manipulating the Hilt with vindication in his eyes.

Steve sidled up to the edge of the Soldier’s couch and sat slowly. Onscreen, the Soldier instigated a five-police-car pile-up, side-swiped a woman with a stroller, and disembarked his hatchback to stab a cornerside gangster to death and loot the corpse. Tony hummed “Pinball Wizard.”

Steve, while familiar with candy-colored family favorites like Mario Kart, had never yet been exposed to Grand Theft Auto IV. “Was this built off the Army’s combat simulator?” he asked, instead of the questions he wanted to ask but would most likely wipe the cool clarity of almost-contentment off Bucky’s face. Again. “For . . . police use?”

Clint gave a soft amused snuffle, a sniper’s guffaw.

“What, the hamster ball?” Tony replied over James Barnes’ head. “Good guess, but totally wrong. In this case, the military co-opted a concept that was already perfected for the civilian market.”

“So what do you call Flight Simulator?” Clint retorted.

“Details.” Tony waved to encompass the screen, the console, and the Winter Soldier hunched at the edge of the couch. “This, Captain, is America’s new national pastime.”

“Who taught him to play video games?” Bruce interrupted from the door Steve had come in from. It was always _him, that guy, your friend,_ with Bruce. Bruce had never called him Bucky, the Winter Soldier, or any name at all since he’d fully understood the situation. It made things awkward, like James Barnes was a person of indefinite pronoun.

“HYDRA, apparently,” Natasha replied. Everyone else looked sharply at James Barnes for a reaction, but he simply hijacked a police motorcycle and headed off the wrong way down the freeway. “Thor handed him the controller and he knew what to do.”

“Good choice, Thor,” Tony said, in the tone he used when he himself couldn’t tell if he meant to be sarcastic.

“I chose the adventure most truthful to your time and nation,” Thor explained. “Or so I had intended.”

They watched the player character ramp his motorcycle up a stalled car and scream along the top of the freeway barricade while helicopters circled overhead.

“Why would HYDRA teach him that?” Steve asked, watching Bucky’s hands swirl and prod at the Hilt.

“Gambling,” said Clint knowingly. “Hey, Barnes, when you’re bored with this one, there’s this new swords-and-sorcery thing you should try. Dark Souls.”

Barnes shrugged. Clint and Natasha did something incomprehensible with hand signals that made it obvious that gambling on the Winter Soldier would continue, HYDRA or no HYDRA.

“Bucky, why don’t you try that one,” Steve said, unsettled. Barnes hopped off the freeway, destroying the bike, sprinted two blocks, and kicked in the door of an apartment building. “It’d give you some distance.”

“Oh, _Steve,_ ” Tony groaned.

Steve leaned around Barnes and raised an eyebrow.

“So predictable. _Steve_. Video game violence does not cause violence.”

Barnes systematically busted open and looted every room on the second floor, netting $625 and three identical tennis bracelets. To save ammunition, he beat the unarmed residents to death with a fire extinguisher. They died cursing him in cartoonish ghetto slang.

“In ‘normal’ individuals, no,” Bruce interjected. “But exposure to violence—in real life, in fiction—makes people contemplate violence. Sometimes rehearse it vicariously. These games are the ultimate rehearsal, and if the seed is there, that won’t help. Catharsis is a myth. The more you rehearse it, the stronger the urge.”

“Bruce, you can’t be taking his side on this.”

“I’m not taking Steve’s side. I’m taking my side. I remember life back when I knew as little psychology as you; I was an idiot. I’m telling you that if I let myself indulge in fantasies of knocking over buildings, the skyline would look a lot different lately.”

The Avengers looked at each-other and contemplated how Steve might go about removing the Hilt from James Barnes’ hands.

“James,” Natasha said, earning a grunt from the Winter Soldier at work. “Explain for us the differences between gameplay and real life.”

Barnes pursed his lips. He had stolen another hatchback, and was now screaming back up a freeway onramp, three patrol cars in pursuit. He ramped the car up a guard rail, flew three hundred feet through the air, landed in the open bay of a Black Hawk helicopter, bailed out, and splashed down in a swimming pool. “Games have buttons,” he said simply. Only Natasha saw him wink.


End file.
